Sugarless confectionary compositions and in particular sugarless chewing gums have become desirable food items due to the efforts of the dental profession in discouraging the use of sucrose-containing confectionaries. Recently the United States Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer Inc. food additive petition for the use of polydextrose in specific food categories. Specifically, polydextrose was approved for use in chewing gums as well as numerous other applications. Polydextrose is a reduced calorie bulking, bodying, or texturizing agent which provides less than one calorie per gram. It is useful in replacing sugar, specifically acting as a substitute for the bulking activity of sugar, giving consistency and texture to food. However, polydextrose does not contain the sweetness properties normally associated with sugar. As such, therefore, polydextrose is not a sweetener and is not a substitute for saccharin.
Pfizer Inc., the manufacturer of polydextrose, in its promotional material advertising polydextrose in various food applications has included therein a recipe for a polydextrose chewing gum. However, Pfizer has only been able to utilize polydextrose to replace approximately 50% of the sorbitol (or sugar alcohol) which would normally be found in a conventional sugar alcohol gum formula. The use of polydextrose as the sole soluble bulking agent in a sugar-free gum was considered to be an unattainable objective because excessive stickiness made processing difficult. In order to make a polydextrose gum it was thought necessary to incorporate a significant amount of sugars and/or sugar alcohols to attain good processing parameters and to obtain a gum product possessing good organoleptic qualities.
It is an object of the present invention to prepare a low calorie chewing gum product possessing good textural and processing properties which is made using polydextrose as the sole bulking agent. Also, since polydextrose is not a sweetening agent the total replacement of polydextrose for the sugar or sugar alcohols normally present as bulking agents in the gum will allow the production of a non-sweet chewing gum which can be used with a snack-type flavor or alternatively a low calorie sweetened gum can be prepared with aspartame or another intensive low-calorie sweetener.